Only a door remains, above which an arch is wrapped, embellished with a marble frame, decorated with bas-reliefs with animals and plants in Byzantine style, perhaps plundered by the Venetians in Byzantium, in the sack of 1204.
We are in the San Giovanni Grisostomo district, in the ancient Sabionera court, a former sand deposit for construction, renamed ‘Corte Seconda del Milion’, because here stood the houses and goods depots of the Polo family, the merchant uncles of Messer Marco Polo, who passed to story for the memories of his travels to the East collected in the book “Il Milione”. This year we celebrate the seven hundredth anniversary of his death of the Venetian traveller. The entire area was devastated by a terrible fire in 1597, and only a few ruins remained of the ancient Polo houses, which were leveled in 1678 to make way for what is now the Malibran theatre. However, from the research of the historian Giuseppe Tassini, it appears that that surviving medieval portal was precisely the entrance to the Polo domus. “It’s a real mess, these are the ugly graffiti that unknown writers have drawn in the basement of Marco Polo’s house”, denounces the Venetian actor and director Alessandro Bressanello, who lives in a courtyard apartment in the Milion. It differs from the main itineraries, poorly lit, the courtyard is a no-man’s land.
The sotoportego, in addition to the paint marks on the plaster and on the ancient support columns – which spared the marble decorations – is often also dirty and gives off a latrine smell. A spectacle of degradation and abandonment of a corner of ancient Venice. “I hope – says Bressanello – that for the celebrations of the seven hundredth anniversary of Marco Polo’s death someone will think about cleaning it up. At the moment only the Masegna and Ninzioleti association has promised to intervene in March”
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